Yemeni Army Thwarts Multiple Houthi Attacks

Houthi followers attend a gathering to receive food supplies from tribesmen in Sanaa, Yemen September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo
Houthi followers attend a gathering to receive food supplies from tribesmen in Sanaa, Yemen September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo
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Yemeni Army Thwarts Multiple Houthi Attacks

Houthi followers attend a gathering to receive food supplies from tribesmen in Sanaa, Yemen September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo
Houthi followers attend a gathering to receive food supplies from tribesmen in Sanaa, Yemen September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo

Yemeni Army forces thwarted a Houthi plot in Marib governorate, according to the Sirwah front commander Major General Ahmed Abu Usba, who confirmed that pro-government forces foiled multiple Houthi attacks in the past few days.

According to Usba, the Yemeni Army was able to secure many positions from which Houthis would launch their attacks.

“Houthi ranks are witnessing a total collapse as a result of the death and arrest of a number of the group’s leaders, most notably Mohammed al-Humrani,” Usba said according to the official September Net website.

Usba added that Army advances recorded are within the framework of self-defense and have impeded Houthi attacks which were intended to exploit the ongoing ceasefire.

Local sources in Al Bayda Governorate reported Houthis attacking army positions and civilian locations on Friday evening. Most of the attacks were focused on Al Habj in Alzaher Al Himiqan district.

Houthi militias also pushed military reinforcements to a number of sites in the Nihim district, east of the capital, Sanaa. This, according to the Yemeni Army, coincided with aborting a Houthi attack on the Hardh front, north of Hajjah governorate. Houthis incurred grave losses.

Houthi militias bombed army sites in the governorates of Taiz and Ad Dali governorates in the south of the country. During Army retaliation, Houthis recorded heavy losses.

Houthi coup militias continue to violate the Stockholm Agreement and the ceasefire agreement declared by the Arab Coalition. The group is escalating its violations and military operations in various regions and districts in the coastal province of Hodeidah, where the second largest port in Yemen is located.

More so, Army forces seized an ammunition shipment en route to Houthis in the Hayes district south of Hodeidah, a source at the Army’s Giants Brigade reported.



Netanyahu Holds Security Briefing Atop Strategic Syrian Peak

An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Holds Security Briefing Atop Strategic Syrian Peak

An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing Tuesday atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights that Israel seized this month, the defense minister said.

Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the heads of the armed forces and the domestic security agency visited "outposts at the summit of Mount Hermon for the first time since they were seized by the military", Katz's office said.

"The summit of Mount Hermon serves as Israel's eyes for identifying both near and distant threats," the defense minister said.

Netanyahu's office said the meeting took place on the "Hermon ridge" and said the premier "reviewed the (army's) deployment in the area and set guidelines for the future".

The prime minister ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone as longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad's rule collapsed in Syria.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the Israeli move was a violation of 1974 armistice which set up the zone to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights following the previous year's Arab-Israeli war.

Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with Netanyahu saying it was in response to a "vacuum on Israel's border and in the buffer zone".

Israeli forces have also been operating in areas beyond the buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory, the military has confirmed.

Katz told the meeting of the importance of "completing preparations... for the possibility of a prolonged presence", the statement said.

He added that the summit of Mount Hermon, home to the world's highest UN observation post at 2,814 meters (9,232 feet) above sea level, provided "observation and deterrence" against both Hezbollah in Lebanon and opposition forces in Damascus.

Israel first occupied the Golan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community as a whole.